Deviance

1. We are trying to figure what it means to be deviant here in our community and how people react and respond to it. If we do not test the boundaries of deviance, then we will never know how much we can get away with and what the punishments are to those who cross those boundaries. For the most part our experiment is exploratory because we are exploring un-charted waters with people who aren’t expecting it.
2. The only things we need to really enforce when going into our experiments are that it should not look planned and that the victims don’t see the camera that I’m filming with. If they see a camera or our experiment looks rehearsed then they are going to assume were just a bunch dumb kids fooling around and won’t take us seriously. As for variables that are necessary and available, all we need is a camera, a sneaky filmer, and a gutsy daredevil.
3. We are planning on doing two experiments; the first is that we approach someone sitting alone at star bucks with a lot of unoccupied seats and invade their space. So while they are enjoying their coffee and solitude we will sit directly with them.
Hypothesis 1. We assume that at first they will suggest that the students go sit at one of the many seats available. If we persist they will eventually give in. Our second experiment was to try to bargain with a von’s cashier. SO instead of paying money we offer to give them something like a pen or even an I.O.U.
Hypothesis 2. The cashier will flat out say no and we will keep spewing out offers and they will keep refusing. We assume that because people value their personal space and will fight for it and because it is against the law to get paid with anything but money.
4. The reason that this is experiment is suited for the initinal question is because we were really testing peoples boundaries and their tipping point. The subjects that we choose to do our expermint were the avarge american workers/consumers and that is why we used a vons cashier and a starbucks consumer. It is very likely that our subjects’ reactions will translate over to all other American cashiers and average consumers.